Routine Ramblings of an Occasionally Interesting Texan

June 24th, 2002

Well, I'm here, but I'm leaving again tonight, and won't be back until late afternoon on Wednesday -- the longest time away that I have scheduled. I'm really hoping that Roo won't show up until I'm already back.

Saturday was a day of packing and being busy and waiting. We went to the munch that turned into a birthday party. I was intrigued by the coincidence of giving a DVD player to Holmes on the same day that the paper reported that Circuit City will no longer be selling movies on videotape. It was relaxing, sitting around talking and just being, for a little bit.

Flar picked up Critter from the birthday party that he was attending, then took the boys to visit Barbar in the hospital. Meanwhile, I packed the car for Louisville. Flyrod was at the party, which meant I didn't have to allow room for his daughter and her suitcase -- which turned out to be a good thing; the car was pretty full.

I'd gotten the whole car packed, and then had to wait for Flar and the boys to get home. Read email, found more software to take with me when I've got my laptop, read live journal, and basically waited. The fidgety way.

By the time we left, got gas, stopped for donuts on the way, it was almost 8 when we arrived. Flood survived the long drive with minimal crying -- I don't plan to make donut or gas stops on my commutes from now on. We got Flood settled in the back with dinner, then I got dinner fixed for Wolf & Sydb and the boys. Pineapple meatloaf boats. A real mom meal. (Polyanna asked for the recipe, so I wrote it up for her -- you can read it here.

It seemed like every blinking thing I tried to do on Saturday took too long, or started late. I was anxious about waking up by 6 the next morning, since I've been sleeping until 8 lately, and I really wanted to go to sleep at 11. But when we'd talked about that, I had forgot to mention reading to the boys at 10, which ended up starting at 10:15, and there was so little time by the when I got upstairs, and then ti seemed like we were just talking and not moving toward bed, which meant I got cranky and said something wrong to Wolf, and then he was mad, and there wasn't going to be time for sex, and then I found myself rolled up into a little ball of misery, totally unable to sleep. As much the result of a long day of nerves and activity and waiting and uncertainty about the future as anything else.

So I find myself in another full moon weekend with emotions abroil. Sunday I alternated between busywork:

Taking the boys to the airport: I had no problems getting a pass to go through security, no problems with security, they even let the boys pre-board instead of wait for their boarding pass number range, so they got to ride together.

Helping to make scalloped potatoes for Sydb: I got to show Wolf how I chop onions and potatoes, after turning down three choices of knives. I understand now why some people bring their own knives when they're going to be cooking in someone else's kitchen -- you get used to your own tools. The knife I settled on was excellently sharp, and definitely the right shape for the chopping I was doing. But I've decided that while a smooth blade is great for potatoes, I prefer a serated edge for onions.

Starting the process of catching up on dishes: I stacked and sorted and got drainpans full washed and dried, so that was a contribution, even if we generate another drainpan full just with dinner. Gonna catch up the rest of the way this afternoon.

Got Sydb to pack her labor and postpartum bags for the hospital: we packed each bag, and generated a list of things to add to the bags, things to buy, and one item to launder.

Alternated between busywork and feeling isolated and feeling depressed and feeling loved and blessed and amazed to be here.

I think somewhere along the way, I shut down something.

Last night I went to bed with that kind of sad feeling that has no rational basis, is background to everything, colors the world, and is so awful and hard to bear.

This morning, I woke up confused and completely not independent or capable of initiative or even just able to ask for anything. Wolf managed to break through a lot of that. We got some time together before he had to go to work, and it was good and wonderful, but at the end I realized that I was completely unconscious of any energy transfer and when I went to look for it, to feel it, I couldn't.

I'm hoping maybe this is just a way to keep anything bad, any of the negative depressive stuff from getting out, hurting anyone.

And that not worrying about it will prevent it from getting bigger, and that I'll find relief from just going through the next few days by keeping in mind what needs to done, and just doing, and not trying very hard with the feeling.

Sydb makes everything easier for me. She is so amazing, and I don't want to be negative around her. I don't want to be sad face or needy or worse - borrowing trouble from the future. But it's still so hard to believe how much she is involving me, making me a part of this time that is for parents, for herself and Wolf, not the whole world, not even for other partners. It's a part of poly that feels like a chimera, like a mirage. I have so much exposure to the "regular" ways of everything, that really believing that all of this really works is like, well, stepping off a cliff and believing in that ledge that's not visible from above.

So a part of me keeps waiting to be sent home, back where I belong. I'm still not really used to thinking that I might belong here, too.

As usual, writing helps. Writing it all out and seeing it and knowing which parts are emotional creations, and which parts are concrete and generated by experience of what's real.

Writing makes it easier to keep faith.

So I'm here, but I'm leaving tonight, but I'm coming back. And everything's so wonderful and loving and good.

But this is one of those just for me posts, thus the no comments. Just need to get the feelings out and look at them, and it's okay for others to see, but don't want to dialog about them, just deal.